From 1 to 100 Million: Growth-Minded PM by Facebook Product Lead - Lauryn Isford
Each development team achieves more through product development, growth, and growth thinking.
Growth mindset
What exactly is a growth team?
The core product development team sometimes referred to simply as the product team, is focused on creating value for the users of this product. Much further, the marketing team is responsible for spreading information about the value of this product. This includes raising awareness and attracting potential customers who could potentially be suitable. Between these teams is the growth team. The goal of our growth team is to provide users with as much benefit as possible. This team uses the value created by the core product development team and then works hard to ensure that every single user intending to use the product can unlock and get the most out of that product.
Many growth teams are working to achieve quick landing and acquisition, churn prevention, paid marketing, marketing notifications and email.
What should growth teams work on?
Over the past 10 years, growth teams have really evolved as marketing teams. The people who worked in growth teams were growth marketers. They were data-driven and continue to be data-driven. In this team, you can find something like paid marketing. AV testing is very common in a growing marketing team, but creating products with a full-stack engineering team is not the case right now.
In the growing technology industry, a new type of team is emerging, which represents growth as a product that will be widely distributed in the next 3-5 years. Growth as a product means that the team is still very data-driven. There are many product managers who are fluent in the sequel but are also fully staffed by a proper team of engineers and cross functional partners who support this team within this growth team. Usually, there will be one product team at each stage of the lifecycle.
What are the stages of the life cycle? This means that there are probably a couple of product teams with a couple of executives who are working on a product that specifically supports the user's lifecycle and what the user moves in their journey with the product. This is called product-like growth.
PLG is an approach to growth that uses the product itself to maximize value for its users. The focus of this growth team is on users who demonstrate intentions. Attracting users to the product and raising awareness is much less common, because the surface used is the product itself. This team creates functions and modifies the functionality of the product to achieve its goal. For example, to help users hold on better or to help users upgrade.
Also in this growth team there is a team of partners who are engaged in the development of the main product.
Growth is not a one-time investment or an annual project that you can complete and finish by leaving. As the product develops and grows, the requirements for best practices and care that the product requires, in connection with its growth theme, develop along with it.
"Moving fast and slow”
The creators of the product should pay attention to its details. If you succeed in small details, they will add up to a great result. By supporting the user with attention to the details and nuances of their preferences that they really need, it improves conversion and helps the user understand the product.
The main steps to create a product:
Acquire
Activate
Retain
Convert
It is important to diagnose where there are the biggest gaps, quantify the opportunity to invest more in each of these areas, and double down on creating features and products.
Creating a growth team or a growth-oriented team
Key qualities of the growth team:
The team should always have and work towards achieving a clear quantitative and measurable goal.
The team should have a portfolio-based approach to product development and product management.
This team should be a partner team of the main product developer team.
Lauren Isford. Head of Self Serve Product at Airtable.